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BlogWorld Expo Vs BookExpo America – The Book Vs. The Blog

The BlogWorld Expo New York is held at the same time and location as the BookExpo America show. If you’re a Web 2.0 guy like me, then you might wondered why BWE would need to colocate with BEA. After all, isn’t the book dead?

One of the exhibitors at BlogWorld was Wiley. They’re the publisher of those “Dummies” books that many people buy but never read. The Wiley booth had only a sign and a table. Finding a rep at the Wiley booth was a big hit or miss. Most of the time the booth was empty, and today, we found the booth completely abandon. This allowed Syed and I to take over the Wiley booth to make the following video.

We were feeling pretty smug with ourselves and decided to check out the BookExpo America show floor to see how dead it was. What we saw gave us a rude awakening.

The Book Is Not Dead

BlogWorld Expo and BookExpo are both held at the Javits Center, which overs over 675,000 square feet of display space divided among multiple halls and floors. This is the floor plan for the BlogWorld Expo.

Barely 50 exhibitors had booths at BlogWorld New York. Wiley was booth 308, a double sized booth. This is the floor plan of the BookExpo America.

Any preconceived notion on our part that the book was dead was destroyed when we got into the BEA show floor. It was MASSIVE! The 2011 BEA attracted over 2,000 exhibitors and nearly 30,000 attendees. To put things into perspective, the BEA had more exhibitors than BlogWorld had attendees!

So the book is not dead. In fact, it looks alive and kicking. Will BlogWorld ever get to the size of BookExpo America? No one can say for sure. However, I’ve seen trade shows much bigger than the BEA go from hero to zero in only a few years (COMDEX). The BlogWorld West shows have been doubling in size every year and I expect the East shows to do the same. I hope to be around when BWE finally overtakes BEA.

If you want to win one of those Wiley books, you’ll have to check with WP Beginner. I gave all my books to him. The book may not be dead, but it’s still too damn heavy to carry around!

With the Kindle, iPad and all these tablets coming in, I also thought of the same thing. But now on my vacation, I realized nothing still beats the feeling of lying down and flippin’ good ol’ paper pages 😉

Agreed, I would have guessed the same. But, it does make sense in that people want paper pages. Also, books can be really for educational references, especially computer programming. Its helpful to be able to bookmark, highlight, and take notes.

But, in the case of the Kindle, it’s actually got a look and feel quite similar to paper, at least among digital technologies. Not sure about the newest ones, though. It even keeps what’s on the screen when powered off.

Books are definitely on their way out. With the new push for the ipad and kindle, there are so many alternatives to paper. We are moving in to the paperless world.
People must start jumping on the bandwagon or get left behind 🙂

I used to be a huge book reader. It’s been a while since I had sat down and read one. I like audio programs because you can do something physical like cutting the grass or exercise and get valuable information at the same time.

great post John! You said it very well and pointed out exactly why we were so excited to be co-located with Book Expo America. Traditional media and new media are on a direct collision course. To their credit BEA recognizes that too and that is exactly why they asked us to join them.

I actually bought a huge biography on George Washington at the airport on the way to BlogWorld. I love books, but I sure wish I could have bought an e-book version of it for the road and had the hard copy shipped to my house in a single purchase (. Chris Brogan and me were talking about this at the show and he added you should be able to get the audio book at the same time as well. I don’t think that future is too far away.

For years before I left my “dirt-world” job I was tasked with trade show after trade show, year after year. So I haven’t been to one in ages, ever since I stopped “working for the man”.

I have heard “power-blogger” after “IM–guru_, after “Online-guitar-hero” tout these shows for bloggers and info marketers … I was always thinking along the lines that they were like the trade shows I used to attend in attendance and importance

One big name IM’er makes a tidy piece of change every year running his own very expensive dirt-based trade show/fan convention (it’s amazing in the dirt-world how many small businesses attend these show where the show organizers make way, way more money than the attendees. Kind of like the guy selling the shovels making more money than the gold miners).

I guess I should have been asking more specific questions over the years about how much business these “Blog World’s” and such were really doing. Sounds to me as if they have a lot more ‘bark’ than ‘byte’. (But hey, tax deductible, after all ;-))

I love books, but they don’t work for me. My house is too small for all the book clutter and I don’t enjoy carrying heavy books on a flight, etc. My Kindle and iPad (and even the Kindle app on my Droid) help to keep the clutter and dust at bay, which are kind of saving my marriage, and I can load all the books I need without my bag getting too heavy. Win win.

I once exhibited at Book Expo America. It was in Chicago, maybe 8-10 years ago. I had one of those tiny booths, way off to the side where folks might come and visit. I had two of my self-published books with me and I was all excited about getting them displayed, making connections, that kind of thing.

And I did make connections and it was a thrill to be a part of it. But what I really remember from BEA was the utter massiveness of the book selling world. My fondest recalls were of walking from one side to the other and just seeing the immense activity and interest in books, books, books.

I am not in the slightest surprised that it’s still a massive scene, perhaps considerably more than what it was 8-10 years.

is the printed book on a potential dwindling spiral in terms of sales? Will more and more “readers” and “nooks and pads” displace them eventually? I honestly don’t think so. The number of books that major publishers will take on will dwindle (and probably has already) but self-publishers are growing by the minute and a healthy number of them are breaking through.

Call me a romantic, but I just believe there’s too much history and joy associated with reading the printed book for it disappear any time soon.

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